


The fire in you

by railou



Series: New Series Ficlets [4]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Ash is a surprisingly good mentor, Canon Compliant, Episode Related, Episode SS017 Hibanny Use Your Flaming Kick! Face Tomorrow!!, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene, poor Gou has so much to learn still, they are trying their best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23649097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/railou/pseuds/railou
Summary: Scorbunny evolves into Raboot and Goh struggles to deal with the changes in their relationship. Good thing Ash is there to shed some light on the situation.Episode tag to New series episode 17.
Relationships: Gou | Goh & Satoshi | Ash Ketchum
Series: New Series Ficlets [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1676848
Comments: 11
Kudos: 229





	The fire in you

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys!
> 
> Yup, I had to write something for this ep! Lets see how well it holds up after this weeks episode :)
> 
> (Also, how good was last Sunday's ep?? I'm so excited!!)

The morning after Scorbunny evolved, Goh drags Ash into the hallway while their pokemon are distracted by their breakfast.

Ash follows after him like he’s a sack of potatoes, limp and distracted. It’s funny, thinks Goh, how Ash is only ever either as hyper as a kid pumped full of sugar, or full on asleep on his feet. Today is one of those slow mornings for him, and Goh has to physically move him to get him far enough away from the others.

“How do I know if I messed up?” he demands, right after he’s planted Ash against a wall and settled in front of him with his arms crossed.

Ash blinks slowly. “Huh…? Messed up what?”

Goh glares at him. He doesn’t want to spell it out, he just wants to _talk about_ it.

“You know”, he grumbles. “With Scorb- with Raboot.”

Ash just looks at him blankly, evidently not comprehending.

“What d’you mean?” he eventually asks, his gaze still slightly clouded.

Goh sighs. Too bad Ash doesn’t understand even the least vague of clues.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t see how it was after it evolved! It- it didn’t even look at me, let alone _talk_ to me! Oh jeez, it must really hate me…”

Ash lets out a short, startled laugh. “What, no way! Raboot doesn’t hate you!” he exclaims, life returning to his eyes, his body. He looks at Goh with some humor, head tilting. Goh frowns even deeper.

“Don’t _laugh_ at me”, he snaps, and watches as Ash’s smile falls. “After everything I said to it, it probably doesn’t trust me anymore! I messed up real bad...!”

Ash keeps looking at him calmly, but now his face is unreadable. It annoys Goh, who is so on edge and worried about his friend that he just wants to _argue_ with somebody.

“Of course Raboot still trusts you, Goh”, Ash says then, his brow creasing a little. “I mean, I could clearly see that from the way you battled together!”

Goh stills, blinks. Suddenly, there’s a heavy lump in his throat and he struggles to speak.

“R-really?” he forces out.

“Oh yeah!” Ash nods, smiling again. “You must’ve felt it too! Raboot was _really_ powerful when it did that move, and you were in perfect sync with it! You two’re gonna be a really good team, Goh.”

Goh’s crying now, and he turns away, wiping his eyes furiously. He was expecting a scolding from Ash, not… _this_. When he turns back around, Ash is still smiling at him in that supportive way of his and it makes Goh feel small – like an ant next to giant. He feels insignificant compared to him, like there’s something unreachable about Ash, something bigger than life.

“Why is it a-acting like that, then? If it doesn’t hate me?” Goh asks in a strangled voice, and a new wave of tears spills out of the corners of his eyes. He’s too emotional to care about hiding it this time, and Ash doesn’t seem to mind anyway.

“Pokemon always change a little bit when they evolve”, Ash says softly. “Some pokemon change a lot more than others, and it often depends on how and why they evolved too. Like, if they’re very angry or scared when they evolve, suddenly that emotion gets way bigger… I mean, they feel it even more strongly, you know?”

Ash doesn’t really wait for him to answer to that, of which Goh is thankful for.

“I guess since Raboot is a fire type pokemon, it wants to learn fire type moves really badly”, Ash continues, his eyes wandering to the side. Thoughtful. “Right before it evolved, it was probably feeling like it was failing itself and, by extension, you. And most pokemon will do anything to not let down their trainer.”

Goh wipes his face with his sleeve, feeling terrible. He never wanted Scorbunny to feel like it wasn’t enough. In fact, he tried his best to tell that to it; that it didn’t matter if it didn’t know certain moves. That it could be strong in other ways, instead.

“But it _wasn’t_ letting me down”, sniffles Goh miserably. “I don’t _care_ if it knows or doesn’t know fire type moves! Why doesn’t it understand that?”

“It’s Raboot’s power, Goh”, Ash says quietly, and Goh looks up, startled. Ash leans against the wall and looks at him carefully. “In the end, it’s Raboot’s right to decide what moves it wants to learn. When you told it you wanted it to stop trying, it might’ve thought you didn’t trust it enough to believe that it even _could_ learn. I know you didn’t mean it like that, but those kinda words can really hurt a pokemon.”

Goh’s eyes widen in realization and he folds his arms around himself. “I– I didn’t respect it’s opinion…”

He looks at Ash, who nods silently. “I didn’t respect it”, Goh repeats, the words tasting sour in his mouth. “And now… it doesn’t respect me.”

“It loves you, Goh”, Ash says plainly. “And it trusts you. But you’re a team. You gotta work together like one.”

Goh bites his lips and nods, slow tears rolling down his face. From the kitchen doorway down the hall, Pikachu’s head peeks out, and it looks towards Ash with curious eyes.

Ash smiles, wider now, and reaches his arm towards it. “Don’t feel too bad about all this”, he says to Goh reassuringly, while Pikachu leaps onto his arm and skitters over to his other shoulder. “It took me a long time and a lot of mistakes to realize this stuff. You got lots of time to spend with Raboot and earn that respect back.”

Goh nods again, numbly. He watches as Ash and Pikachu rub their cheeks together, giggling, and it looks so _effortless_. He really, really wants that.

“I want to get stronger for Raboot”, he says emphatically, wiping his face clean, this time for good. “I want to show it that I’m worth its trust.”

Ash grins. “Good”, he replies, throwing his arm around Goh’s shoulders. “And I’ll help you with that.”

They start walking back towards the kitchen like that, and Goh feels like smiling, for the first time since Raboot turned its back to him in the park.

_Respect_ , he thinks, turning the word over in his mouth.

He can do that.


End file.
